Heavy Rain- A Review

Heavy Rain
By Noah Bowden

If one thing could be said about most modern games, it’s that storyline is something which has suffered at times. Games like ‘Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2’ attempt to pass off a 6 hour campaign mode as a ‘story.’ Sure it has a plot line, but one which is about as solid as standing on a floor made of treacle.

So it comes as a nice change of pace to play a game with a good solid foundation of writing. ‘Heavy Rain’ is a game in which players follow the lives of the games four main characters; Ethan Mars, Scott Shelby, Madison Paige and Norman Jayden. All four of whom have their lives intertwined by a series of tragic events as they attempt to track down a serial killer known as the ‘Origami Killer.’ A crazed psychopath who is kidnapping children and paper-cutting them to death… okay, well maybe that’s a lie, but with a game that revolves mainly around its storyline, it’s difficult to talk about it without giving anything else away.

So I guess that leaves the actual gameplay to discuss… well, there isn’t much to talk about there either. The game revolves around a series of interactive sections moving from dialogue choices, point-and-click-esque room investigation and quick time events. The game uses the left analogue stick to simulate life events, such as pushing it ‘up’ to pick up an object, whilst movement is controlled as normal through the right stick. All nice and simple, until they decided to throw a Kong sized spanner in the works by forcing you to hold [R2] to walk. Why the need to involve unnecessary button presses? One gets the feeling that perhaps the game needed some extra padding due to that lack of actually gameplay, since the whole game really is just a series a very similar feeling, and arthritis inducing, button mashing sessions.

As for the graphics, the detail put into aspects of the game are fantastic, certainly the facial expressions, which far exceed anything I’ve seen in a previous game. However, once again, developers Quantic Dream seem to have spent so much time and effort producing phenomenal facial expression, that they have forgotten the necessity of having good frame rate in everything else. Scenes with large crowds move slowly and broken, whilst little details like the splashes produced from rain hitting the floor, look almost painted on as an after-thought by a six year old with an overly active crayon addiction… not a good sign when the game’s title itself involves large quantities of the wet stuff.

Don’t get me wrong, Heavy Rain is great. It has a fantastic storyline, strong and likeable characters and is a fantastic change of pace from the slurry of remarkably similar FPS’ dished out from the slimy, gruel bowl of mediocrity that has swept the gaming world. Unfortunately it does fall short here and there, and more importantly than that, I find myself struggling to refer to it as a game. It feels like it would be more at home on a DVD rental shelf, something me and the girlfriend could sit and enjoy together, not something I would play with the mates.

In summery, if you fancy a change from the usual style of nowadays’ games, this is defiantly worth a look in, but stay clear if you find yourself constantly wishing you could press [R1] to look down a gun scope. If that IS the case, perhaps you would be more entertained by staring at a pair of shiny keys.

My score: 8/10